Featured Image: (Pacer Graphic / Sophia Phillips)

E-scooters are not only a growing trend for on-campus transportation, but also tools that have the potential to cause dangerous accidents.

UT Martin witnessed an accident of its very own when senior football player and interdisciplinary studies major Chris Franklin of Little Rock, Arkansas, was hit by a vehicle when riding his scooter across a sidewalk Wednesday, Aug. 26, near the Hardy Graham Football Stadium in Martin, Tenn.

“The lights were flashing. The left side of traffic stopped…I was almost across the street. My front tire was on the sidewalk. My back tire was still in the street. It was out of my peripheral vision…She hit my back tire,” Franklin said.

Franklin had been driving his e-scooter since he first received it from his family in June. He looked forward to riding it on-campus during the new school year, only to witness its destruction upon impact with a moving vehicle.

“My leg got scraped up real bad. I had to go see the trainer in Elam to clean my leg up and my elbow. I more so got my injuries from when I flew off of the scooter and hit the ground,” Franklin said.

Even though Franklin sustained no major injuries from the collision, UT Martin quickly took action to spread safety precautions that would remedy the growing number of e-scooters on campus during the fall 2026 semester.

Franklin reflected on how this event will shape his attitude when using crosswalks in the future.

“It was shocking for me. It made me way more cautious going across the street. I just wait until people actually stop. I don’t care if I see them slowing down. I wait till they come to the complete stop,” Franklin said.

In the aftermath of the incident, Public Safety Director and Chief Michael O’Neill sent out an email that informed the student body of the risks that may result from recklessly driving the e-scooters.

“What we’ve seen this year is a pretty large increase in the number of scooters on campus,” O’Neill said. “We’re not discouraging their use as a transportation option at all. The email we put out is about safe operation of the scooters.” 

One of the most important guidelines prohibited students from riding e-scooters across the crosswalks.

“People need to understand that on a bicycle or e-scooter, you’re not a pedestrian; you are a vehicle, so you do not have the right of way in a crosswalk. If you get off of that and you walk across the street, now you’re a pedestrian,” Environmental Health Safety Coordinator Charlie Jahr said.

“When a scooter comes 15-20 miles an hour through the crosswalk, they don’t have enough time to react, and that’s where an accident can happen,” O’Neill said.

Even though campus safety still allows e-scooters as transportation on campus, they discourage reckless driving when pedestrians are nearby, advising students to drive said scooters at reasonable speeds and stay off of their cell phones and other distractions.

“We want to reduce those interactions between cars and people, because we do not want anybody getting hurt, but we also don’t want people getting hurt trying to get across campus walking,” Jahr said.

O’Neill and Jahr also assured that students will be prohibited from using any of their e-scooters in university buildings, including on-campus housing and dormitories.

Ryan Martin, the director of UTM Housing, provided some of his own opinions on the use of e-scooters in on-campus housing.

“They do not need to be used inside the building. People need to walk them,” he said.

Martin also believes that the sheer amount of e-scooters used by students on campus may lead to additional bike racks outside each dormitory.

“I don’t know what happened, but it seems like everybody came back with a scooter. We might have to order some more bike racks and get them installed out there,” he said.

O’Neill reassured that his top priority regarding the e-scooters was safety.

“There could be repercussions for unsafe use, but really what we want to put out is we want people to be operating these things safely. You know, they’re sharing the walkways with pedestrians, they’re sharing the roadways with larger motorized vehicles, so we don’t want people getting hurt,” he said.

Franklin, the victim of the first known e-scooter-related traffic accident at UT Martin, advised students to take extra precautions when riding scooters as well.

“Don’t always assume that people are paying attention. Even though you don’t see any traffic…still take your time and just look both ways. Triple-check,” Franklin said.